高等教育经历会提高信任水平吗?——基于CFPS的实证研究

Does Higher Education Improve Trust?—A CFPS-based Empirical Research

信任是社会科学的基础性概念,对于维护社会秩序、降低交易成本、促进社会融合具有重要意义。高等教育对信任的影响一直是研究的热点问题,在中国情境下其影响机制和效果仍有待深入的实证分析。采用2018年中国家庭追踪调查数据(CFPS),分析中国情境下高等教育经历对于个体信任水平的影响,从熟人信任、陌生人信任、专业人员信任和政府官员信任四个主体进行分析。研究发现:第一,接受高等教育可以显著提高受教育者的信任水平,其中对陌生人信任提升幅度最大,对熟人信任提升幅度较小;第二,从收入机制和信息机制两个方面检验了高等教育对信任的影响机制,发现收入提升的中介效应对陌生人信任具有显著影响,但对其他类型信任影响较小,而信息在教育对不同类型信任的影响中均有中介效应。这表明,教育更多的是以非经济效应的方式塑造了信任关系。

Trust is a fundamental concept of social science,which is of great significance to maintain social order,reduce transaction costs and promote social integration.A deeper empirical study to its influence mechanism and effects is especially significant within Chinese contexts.This paper employs the 2018 China family tracking survey(CFPS)data and analyzes the impacts of higher education on individual trust from four aspects:acquaintances’trust,strangers’trust,professionals’trust and government officials’trust.Major findings are as following.First,a higher education significantly improves educated individuals’social trust,with most trust increase in strangers,and least in acquaintances.Secondly,this paper examines the channels between higher education and trust in terms of income mechanism and information mechanism.It reveals that the income mediator has a significant impact on strangers’trust,but small on other types.On the other hand,information mediator has a significant effect on all social trust types.This provides the evidence that education may profoundly shape trust with its non-pecuniary effects.